


Through The Looking... Portal

by MagicaDraconia16



Series: 2020 Bingos [16]
Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Dimension Travel, Gen, Humor, Magical Accidents, Multiverse, Portals, Reed Richards' Portals, Tony Stark Bingo 2020, TropesAndFandoms20
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24902410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicaDraconia16/pseuds/MagicaDraconia16
Summary: Reed Richards was an absolutemenace.Of course, it was Tony's fault for touching the obviouslymagicalobject in the first place. What else would you expect from something that came from a portal designed to look into alternate dimensions?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Tony Stark, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes & Mycroft Holmes
Series: 2020 Bingos [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1634290
Comments: 3
Kudos: 44
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo 2020, Tropes & Fandoms 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **TropesAndFandoms20:** _Magical Accident_. 
> 
> Also written for the **Tony Stark Bingo:**  
>  Chapter 1: _adopted prompt - Sent to a Different Dimension_  
>  Chapter 2: _A4 - Multiverse Shenanigans_  
>  Chapter 3: _adopted prompt - Meeting Alternate Universe Counterparts_
> 
> Card Number: 3035  
> Square Filled (Letter/number AND prompt): adopted prompt - sent to a different dimension (chpt 1), A4 - multiverse shenanigans (chapt 2), adopted prompt - meeting alternate universe counterparts (chpt 3)  
> Ship/Main Pairing: James "Bucky" Barnes & Tony Stark  
> Rating: Teen  
> Major Tags: the odd swearing, dimension travel, magical accidents, Reed Richards' portals  
> Word Count: 5215
> 
> Set in some vague(ish), nebulous time where everything is golden and nothing hurts.

Reed Richards was an absolute _menace_.

If Tony had said it once, he’d said it a thousand times. He’d said it fifty times already this week alone, and it was only Tuesday.

“I hate Reed Richards,” he grumbled over the comms as he approached the locale of Reed’s latest gaff. “I’m going to kick his ass once we’ve dealt with this.”

“Ah, come on, Stark, surely he’s not _that_ bad.”

Tony lowered his head to glare at the passenger dangling below his armour, although the ferocity of it was rather lost due to the fact that he had his helmet on and thus his face couldn’t be seen.

“I feel you glaring at me,” said Bucky Barnes, placidly. “Nothing but wasted energy. Better watch where we’re going.”

Tony would have jerked his head up in offense, except that would have been doing precisely what Barnes wanted, so instead he made sure to _juusst_ miss the closest building as he swooped past. _Watch where you’re going_ , indeed!

“Yes, Reed Richards is that bad,” he continued with his complaining. “He’s always doing crazy experiments in the Baxter Building, with no regard for safety, or clear results, or for the processing of evidence, or-or-or—”

“Hmm, sounds a lot like you,” Barnes said. His gaze was no longer on Tony, but rather directed to the streets flashing past beneath them. “There!” He pointed at something on the ground. “Your two o’clock. Something is flashing.”

Tony swung round to investigate, ignoring the insult to his person. Sure enough, there was a portal in the middle of the street, spitting sparks at anyone foolish enough to attempt getting close. And it was New York; there were a _lot_ of people foolish enough. “Yep, definitely one of Reed’s portals,” Tony agreed. “Why he can’t just open them in his _lab_ , I’ll never know. Oh, wait, I _do_ know! Because Susan won’t let him because it’s their _living space_ and _it’s dangerous_.” He veered off towards the top of a relatively mid-rise building that had an unimpeded view of the portal and the surrounding streets. “End of the line, Freezer Pop.”

Obligingly, Barnes let go of his grip on the Iron Man armour and dropped towards the building’s roof, tucking into a shoulder roll as he landed. “Doesn’t look like anything’s popped out yet,” he observed, giving quick sideways glances to the portal as he set up his sniper nest. It always gave Tony such a thrill, seeing him do that.

And it had nothing to do with the man himself, no matter _what_ Rhodey said. It was just a competency kink, that was all.

Tony was an expert at lying to himself.

He left the Winter Soldier on lookout and went to take a turn or two around the portal. The crowds had gathered to gawk at it, but they’d still managed to retain just enough wisdom to leave a small space around it. Tony really wished that Richards had managed to get in touch with them about this earlier, but apparently he’d been convinced that he could solve it himself, “it’ll only take a couple of seconds, okay, maybe just a few, okay a couple of minutes, hmm so maybe half an hour?”. Susan, his long-suffering wife, had eventually smacked him upside the head and called the Avengers.

Who were, unfortunately, scattered to the winds on various missions right now. Which left him and Barnes as the only ones available to go and corral anything that might escape before Richards could shut the portal down.

“Can you see anything through it?” he asked Barnes.

The sniper peered through the scope of his rifle at the portal. “Nope,” he said. “Just a whole lot of what looks like grey fog. Did Reed say what this thing was supposed to be for?”

Tony gave a snort of derision. “What else are Richards’ portals for?” he asked, rhetorically. “To look into another dimension, of course.”

“Oh, of course.” Even without seeing him, Tony _knew_ that Barnes was rolling his eyes. “Silly me. What else would it have been?”

It occurred to Tony, as he flashed past behind the portal again, that the top of it was marginally lower than it had been just seconds ago. “Hey, FRI, am I seeing that right?” he asked, switching off the comm line for a moment. “Is that thing getting smaller already?”

“Sure looks that way, Boss,” FRIDAY agreed, cheerfully. “Readings indicate that it is already point zero zero zero eight millimetres shorter than it was when we arrived.”

“Huh.” Tony switched his comm back on. “Hey, Popsicle, looks like this might be an easy job after all. It’s closing already.”

There came an exasperated groan over the line. “Thanks a lot, Stark, now you’ve jinxed us,” Barnes complained.

Almost on cue – as if to spite him – the portal abruptly shimmered and then immediately shrank itself down until it was the size of a pinprick in the air, and Tony couldn’t see it with the naked eye anymore. At that point, there was a disproportionately loud _POP!_ and the thing disappeared completely from every kind of scan Tony and FRIDAY could perform. The only thing that was left was, oddly, a small box sitting in the middle of the street, looking for all the world as though someone had dropped a wrapped present there.

Barnes’ head popped up from his rifle like a meerkat’s. “Is that it?” he asked, surprised. “It’s gone, just like that?”

“Apparently so,” agreed Tony. He hovered in the air, right where the top of the portal had just been. “No readings of it at all.”

“That doesn’t make sense, even for one of Reed’s portals,” Barnes observed as he began to dismantle the rifle from its tripod. “Even when he’s working fast, they don’t usually disappear like _that_.”

“Still, let’s not look a gift portal – _literally_ – in the mouth,” said Tony as he slowly lowered himself towards the street. “We take that back to Richards, tell him _very sternly_ not to do it again or I’ll make it my mission to search out different dimensions just to have a couple dozen Susan Storms yelling at him, and then we can return to the Tower.”

Barnes had disappeared from the rooftop; he was sliding down the fire escape on the side of the building, the grip of his metal hand throwing off sparks at the friction. He landed on the ground and immediately strode over to where Tony was landing without even pausing to regain his balance. “Are you sure we’re safe to handle that?” he asked, coming to a halt and gazing dubiously down at the present. “Shouldn’t we get Strange down here to look at it?”

“Nah, I’m sure it’s fine now,” said Tony, blithely. The armour retracted into its nanite housing. “After all,” Tony continued, as he bent down to pick up the present, “what’s the worst that could ha—”

His fingers brushed the box, and it exploded.

White light enveloped Tony. He was yelling, he was sure he was yelling, he _had_ to be yelling, he could feel it in his throat, damn it, but he couldn’t _hear_ it. He could also feel something on his arm, but he wasn’t too worried about _that_ because it was already sliding off, whatever it was… had been.

 _Fuck, I should have listened to Barnes_ , he realised, as the light intensified and the ground abruptly seemed to drop away from him, leaving Tony in free fall. He yelled some more – which he still couldn’t hear – and flailed, hoping to catch hold of something that could break his fall.

There didn’t seem to be anything. He couldn’t even tell if he was even the right way up anymore. He could have cartwheeled himself around and be about to land head-first for all he knew.

The air seemed to be getting denser around him, slowing his movement until he couldn’t move at all, not even a twitch of his pinkie finger. It also seemed to be guiding him through a lot of twists and turns. Tony was rather thankful that he wasn’t prone to motion sickness, because God knew this would have set it off if he were.

It served him right for retracting the suit. If he’d left it on, he’d be perfectly fine right now. But now he couldn’t move to tap on the housing and activate it, and unfortunately, if she could even still reach him, FRIDAY was not able to read minds, no matter how well she could anticipate sometimes.

It occurred to Tony that this was taking rather a long time. Just where was this box _sending_ him? Unless he’d been millions of miles up in the air of wherever, he should surely have hit the ground by now.

 _I am really going to kill Richards this time if I end up falling for the rest of my life_ , he groused to himself.

And even as he thought it, the white light and the dense air all fell away, and Tony was abruptly plummeting even faster through blackness than before.

* * *

On the street of New York, the wrapped present that was sitting alone in the middle of the street where two of the Avengers had been standing just seconds ago disappeared with a little, satisfied _pop_.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been a long time since he’d been hurt badly enough to feel like this – being with the Avengers was _much_ easier than being under Hydra’s thumb – but he hadn’t forgotten the feeling of being run over by a tank. Or a Hulk, that was always a possibility.

What villains had they been fighting this time? Oh, wait, no; they’d been called out because Reed Richards had lost control – and sight – of one of his portals again and had needed to stay in his lab to manually shut it down. Unfortunately, though, most of the Avengers weren’t even in the state, let alone the city, and some weren’t even in the _country_. The only ones available had been him and…

_Tony!_

Bucky jack-knifed himself upright, eyes springing open and already surveying the terrain. Which appeared to be a jungle.

In a room? What the hell? Where was he, and, perhaps more importantly, where was Tony?

There’d been a small present, he suddenly remembered. One wrapped as though for a birthday gift, and it had been left behind when Reed’s portal had abruptly closed. Tony had got out of the Iron Man suit and reached for it, despite Bucky’s cautions. _Warranted_ cautions, as the thing had promptly exploded. Bucky had made a grab for Tony’s arm as they were engulfed in excruciatingly bright light, but he’d been three-quarters blinded and hadn’t been able to get a firm grip; Tony had fallen away from him before he could secure them together.

And now—

“Oh, look, he’s awake!” a voice said cheerfully from nearby. “Steady there, old chap, that looked to be a rather heavy landing.”

_Tony?_

The voice didn’t sound quite right. Although he thought there were echoes of Tony’s speech pattern in it – especially when the engineer was deep into a four-day inventing binge – the accent was British.

“Perhaps he’d be so kind as to inform us as to _how_ he managed to fall from _inside_ our rooms,” another voice said, equally British but much flatter and unenthusiastic.

Bucky glanced around himself again. Yes, he was very definitely indoors, surrounded by several dozen plants that wouldn’t have looked out of place deep in the Amazon rainforest. Interspersed between the plants were several pieces of furniture, including two armchairs, which were occupied by two men staring at him.

One of the men was aiming a pistol at him.

The other man looked a _hell_ of a lot like Tony Stark. Except in Victorian-era clothes.

Bucky carefully raised his hands into the air. “Don’t shoot,” he said. “I, ah, appear to have had a… bit of a mishap.”

“More than a bit of a mishap, I’d wager,” the Tony-look-alike said. He leant forward and peered at Bucky even more intensely. “That arm’s not your real arm.”

“Ah, no. No, it isn’t,” Bucky agreed. “I lost it in a… fall, years ago.”

“You don’t appear to be having much luck with ‘falls’,” observed the second man. He lowered the pistol slightly but didn’t remove its sights from Bucky. “Who are you? And how did you get in here? I know there’s holes in the roof, but they’re not _that_ bad.” 

Bucky opened his mouth to answer, but then closed it again. Reed’s portal had been to find access to another dimension. Reed was obsessed with the idea, with the fact that one tiny, infinitesimal difference could create a whole new reality that looked nothing like their own.

And it didn’t look as though Bucky were in his rightful place anymore.

“Um,” he began again, lowering his hands slightly, “could you perhaps tell me the date, first?”

“The date?” the first man repeated, while the second one’s eyebrows shot upwards.

“My dear chap, it’s the 16th of August, 1889.”

Bucky felt the blood drain from his face. He wasn’t quite sure what expression his face was suddenly showing, but the two men made abortive movements towards him, as though worried they’d have to catch him if he fainted.

Which was a definite possibility.

“And the place?” he managed to croak out. “Where exactly am I?”

The second man frowned at him. “Do you usually fall into places that you don’t know?” he asked.

“Watson,” the first man said, repressively. “Can’t you see this man’s in shock? And you call yourself a doctor. Hop to it, man! First aid!”

The man sighed and gave his… friend? Companion? an exasperated look. “He’s not injured, Holmes,” he pointed out. “With an arm like that, I expect he’s used to shock. He’ll get over it,” he added, fairly callously in Bucky’s opinion. Weren’t doctors supposed to want to heal all the world’s ills?

Then again, he reminded himself, he _was_ in – apparently – 1889. Had medicine advanced much yet, or were they still using leeches and tonics?

Holmes abruptly bounced to his feet and began to pace around Bucky, hands held loosely behind his back. Bucky wasn’t exactly a fan of this behaviour; it was much too reminiscent of the Hydra scientists, and the upper echelon eyeing him up like a prize cow to be slaughtered.

“You’re not from here, are you?” Holmes asked, abruptly, coming to a halt in front of Bucky again. His expression was much the same one that Tony got when he was trying to figure out a new piece of alien tech.

“No, I’m not,” Bucky agreed. “But I don’t think you’ll believe me if I tell you where I’m actually from.”

Holmes gave a quick spin to exchange looks with Watson, then spun back. “How interesting,” he said, and flopped down into the chair behind him without even looking to check how far away from it he was. Surprisingly, he landed directly in it. “Tell us more,” he urged.

Bucky sighed to himself. Well, they had asked for it. “Several minutes ago, I was in 2016—”

* * *

_Ouch._

That was the first thought that ran through Tony’s mind as he began to stir into consciousness, and it was the only thought he had for quite a few minutes afterward.

Eventually, he realised that the reason his bed wasn’t so comfortable as it usually was was because he wasn’t in it. He was actually lying face down on cobble stones. If he’d landed on those, no wonder he hurt.

With a hearty groan, he managed to roll himself over and promptly got a face full of rainwater. Spluttering, he brought up an arm to shield his face.

“Hey, mister, is that your usual place to sleep?” a voice called out. It took a couple of minutes for Tony to realise it was addressing him.

“Uh, no, not usually,” he said, lifting his head up to try and spot whoever was speaking to him. He appeared to be at the end of an alley, and there were too many shadows for him to make out anyone. “Mind telling me where this ‘place’ is?”

“Can’t do that, I’m afraid,” the voice replied, and one of the shadows to Tony’s left moved, allowing him to finally pinpoint the person.

Tony levered himself upright, disliking the vulnerability of remaining on his back around a stranger. He squinted at the corner where the person was standing. About the only thing he could make out was that the man was tall and was wearing a thigh-length coat.

“If you’re hoping to keep me here, then it won’t work,” he advised. “It’s an SI policy to never pay ransom for me.”

There was a snort in the darkness, and then the man finally stepped close enough so that Tony could see him. His mouth immediately fell open in surprise. “Bucky?” he exclaimed, barely even noticing that he’d used the man’s nickname.

The man – who could easily have been Barnes’ twin brother – looked confused for a moment. “Who the hell is Bucky?” he asked, then shook his head, dismissing the question. “The reason I can’t tell you where ‘here’ is, is because I don’t have any clue, myself.”

“Oh,” Tony said, and then several things immediately slotted into place in his mind. “ _Oh_ ,” he groaned. “I am seriously going to _kill_ Richards when I get back home!”

The Barnes-look-alike tilted his head, confused again.

Tony scrubbed his hands over his face. How the hell was this his life? Richards had been trying to find other dimensions. The portals that kept getting away from him and wreaking havoc all over New York were supposed to be windows into these other dimensions, except more often than not Richards got it wrong and they turned out to be doorways instead. Whatever had happened to the one he and Barnes had been called out for however long ago it had been, it had obviously been triggered somehow and had scooped him up and dumped him in one of those alternate dimensions.

Or possibly just moved him in time somewhere, Tony wasn’t quite sure yet.

Given the look of the man standing nearby, Tony wasn’t the only one out of place.

“I’m Tony,” he said, eventually. “And I’m from New York in 2016. Can I ask where you come from?”

The man folded his arms over his chest, and Tony finally realised that he was holding what looked like a top hat. “Jefferson. From Storybrooke, Maine, 2016,” he said. Tony felt a jolt of surprise go through him. He hadn’t expected _that_ answer at all. The stranger’s mouth abruptly twitched up into a smirk. “And also the Enchanted Forest,” he added.

Ah, _there_ was the weird answer he was expecting.


	3. Chapter 3

“So,” Tony said to Jefferson a few hours later, once the other man had ventured out of the alley to scrounge up a newspaper, “it appears that we’re in London, England.”

“Really? This doesn’t seem like London,” Jefferson objected, wrinkling his nose. It wasn’t a mannerism that Tony had ever seen Barnes do, but God, Tony hoped he would once they returned because he found it _ridiculously_ sexy.

“We’re also in 1889,” Tony said, and pointed to the date on the newspaper.

Jefferson scowled down at the hat he was still carrying. According to what he’d told Tony, he was actually the Mad Hatter, from the Enchanted Forest, and with his magical hat he could travel between worlds. Tony would have objected more strenuously to this story if it weren’t for the fact that a) he was an Avenger, weird shit was his new normal, and b) a present that had come from a scientific portal had dumped him in 1889 England with nary a by-your-leave.

“If my _hat_ was _working_ ,” said Jefferson through gritted teeth, shaking the hat for emphasis, “then I’d be able to get us out of here.”

“I’m not sure that’d help me,” Tony admitted, folding the newspaper back up and sticking it under his arm. Not that it helped him to blend in any, as he’d been in the workshop when the call to assemble came in, so he was currently dressed in jeans and a ratty old T-shirt, neither of which was the attire of choice in their current locale.

Jefferson squinted sideways at him. “Why not?” he asked. “Two people in from 1889 London, two people out in 2016 Maine. You could easily get home from there.”

“You missed the part where I’m possibly from a different dimension,” Tony pointed out.

“Sherly!”

“Once we got back to Storybrooke, I’m sure someone there’d be able to help,” said Jefferson. “Could ask a few fairies, a witch or a warlock or two…”

“I say, Sherly!”

“I think that guy’s talking to you,” Jefferson remarked, and pointed at a rather large man striding over to them. The man was carrying a cane, and actually using it to push people aside out of his way as though worried they’d pass some nasty disease on merely by breathing in his air.

“I _say_ , Sherly, didn’t you hear me calling you?” the man asked Tony as he finally reached them. He peered closely at Tony for a moment – which was quite a feat considering how far in the air his nose was, Tony thought – and then frowned mildly. “One of your cases, hmm?” he said, and glanced at Jefferson so quickly that Tony would have missed it if he weren’t already watching the man’s face. “A new partner, too. Is this the good Doctor Watson’s replacement? I’m sure he’ll be _so_ disappointed.”

Unfortunately, Tony couldn’t think of anything to say without immediately giving the game away that he wasn’t who this bloke thought he was.

“Shall I give you a lift to Baker Street?” the man enquired, but he was already turning, using the cane to once again clear his path towards an _actual horse-drawn carriage_.

Tony exchanged glances with Jefferson. “Don’t think we really have a choice,” the other man said.

Heaving a resigned sigh, Tony reluctantly left the dubious safety of the alley and made his way towards the carriage, where the mistaken stranger was already seated and a servant in uniform was holding the door open for them. He had no idea what on earth he was going to do once they reached this Baker Street. He wondered whether the man could be persuaded to just drop them off at a corner…

* * *

“You’re right; I don’t believe you,” Watson said dryly once Bucky had finished telling them his story. He’d lowered the pistol – finally – but it was still close to hand, and he was sitting rather carefully. Bucky recognised it; the man was prepared to make a move on him if necessary. “You’re trying to tell us that some… some _magic_ sent you here?”

“Not magic, Watson; _science_!” Holmes interrupted before Bucky could say anything, stabbing his finger into the air. “Science that is so far advanced of our own that it only _looks_ like magic to the uneducated! Just think, a hundred years or so ago, or even just _twenty_ years ago, cars were unheard of, a mere _dream_ in some man’s mind! And now look; half of London has one!”

“I… don’t think that’s quite comparable,” said Watson, but Holmes was undeterred. Or just not listening, Bucky couldn’t quite tell. The frenzy the man was working himself into was surprisingly attractive, although Bucky hastily stomped on that feeling before it could grow any further. He’d been exposed to too many of Tony’s science rants, that was all.

He awkwardly cleared his throat, and Holmes finally paused for breath. “Look,” he said, “I just need to write a letter, and hopefully sometime really soon after that, someone will come get me.”

Watson frowned at him. “Write a letter?” he repeated. “To whom? I thought you weren’t from here…?”

Bucky shook his head. “No, I’m not. But, if things work out the way I expect, then I write a letter and leave instructions for it to be passed on at a certain date. Time will pass, instructions will hopefully be followed, and someone who can _do_ something will see it and come to fetch me. From the date and time I give them, which will be as soon as I’ve written the letter.”

“But…” Watson frowned harder. “If they come immediately, then the letter won’t be needed, surely.”

“A paradox!” Holmes yelled, making them both startle as he jumped to his feet. “You will write the letter so they come and they will come _because_ you wrote the letter!”

 _Build the field and they will come_ , Bucky thought wildly. It was from some movie that Tony had made them all watch several months ago. And several months before that, and several weeks before _that_. Everyone on the team except Steve had quoted that line again and again both before and during the movie.

Before anyone else could say anything, though, the sound of something rapping on the front door downstairs drifted up to them.

“Are you expecting anyone, Holmes?” Watson asked.

“No.” Holmes stepped around Bucky and pushed his way through the plants towards the front windows, where he peered through them. “Oh, _blast_ ,” he said, turning back to them. “It’s my brother. Watson, hide him in your study.”

“Wha—?” Bucky didn’t even manage to finish the word before Watson was on his feet and pulling at Bucky’s arm. Of course, he wouldn’t have been able to lift Bucky if Bucky really hadn’t wanted him to, but in this case he thought it better to follow the other’s lead. He had no idea who Holmes’ brother was, nor why the two men felt it necessary to hide Bucky from him, but they knew more than he did.

Watson pulled him into a small room off the main one and slid the doors shut. “Quiet,” the man murmured, placing a finger to his lips in emphasis. “Mycroft will likely know you’re here anyway, but no point in giving yourself away so easily.”

Bucky could only blink at him. _Mycroft? What kind of a name is that?_ he wondered.

“Mr Holmes,” a woman’s voice said from downstairs. And then, “Oh, Mr Holmes! I thought you were still upstairs with Doctor Watson! And… my goodness, _what_ are you wearing now?”

“Never mind that, Mrs Hudson,” a rich, plummy voice answered her. ‘Mycroft’, presumably. “Sherly was just handling a spot of bother for me. No need to show us up.”

Watson was rolling his eyes when Bucky glanced at him. He was a bit afraid to ask what Holmes’ first name was, now.

Although the unasked question was answered two minutes later when the same voice, albeit much closer, said, “Sherlock, I found your doppelgänger hanging around a few streets away. What exactly have you been doing? Very careless of you to lose him.”

“I have lost _nobody_ ,” said Holmes’ voice, stridently. He sounded, Bucky thought in amusement, rather like an offended cat that had got its back up. “I don’t—Oh.” He cut himself off with a breathy noise of surprise. “Oh,” he repeated. “I see. Watson!” he called. “Watson, you can come out. And bring our guest with you!”

Huffing an exasperated sigh, Watson slid the doors open again, exposing them to the group standing in the room. Along with Holmes was a man who looked as though he was smelling something foul, someone who – Bucky did a double-take – looked an awful lot like _him_ , and…

“Tony!”

Tony jolted from where he’d been staring at Holmes and spun to see Bucky. “Bucky!” he exclaimed.

Bucky smiled at him helplessly, immensely relieved to see the billionaire alive and well and here. “Next time I tell you we should let Strange look at something first, we let Strange look at it first.”

“Pfft.” Tony waved a hand in dismissal, but he was grinning back at Bucky. “Next time we’ll just Richards sort his own damn portal out.”

“If I may interrupt?” Holmes looked fascinated as he glanced between Bucky, Tony and the other man that had come with Tony and the other Holmes. “Are these the ones you were going to write to?” he asked.

Bucky shook his head. “No. Tony is the reason both of us are here in the first place because he can’t keep his hands to himself—” Tony gave everyone a sheepish shrug. “—and I have no idea who _that_ is.” He gestured to his own look-alike. It really was eerie just how much the man resembled Bucky himself.

“Jefferson, Mad Hatter, at your service,” the man said, and swept into an extravagant bow. Somehow, the top hat he was wearing remained firmly on his head. “I’m from Storybrooke, Maine, or the Enchanted Forest, depending on the day.”

Bucky blinked at this and glanced at Tony.

“Fairly certain he’s from a different dimension,” Tony informed him, shrugging again. “One that actually includes—” He shuddered in disgust. “— _magic_.”

“There, there.” Bucky took a step forward and went to pat Tony on the shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll—” _get over it_ , he’d been going to say, but his hand touched Tony’s shoulder, and the entire world went away in a wash of bright light.

The two Holmes brothers, Watson and Jefferson all stared at the place where the other two men had been standing just seconds before. Once he’d stopped blinking, Jefferson swiftly removed his hat and spun it out of his hands. It landed on the floor with a gentle _thwap_.

“Really, Sherly,” said Mycroft Holmes over Jefferson’s anguished cry as he leapt forward to snatch the hat up. “What on _earth_ have you been doing?”

“It still doesn’t work!” Jefferson shouted, giving the hat a brisk shake as though something inside it might be clogged up and jamming it. “My hat still doesn’t work! _Why can’t I make it work?!_ ” he howled.

“So sorry, old boy,” said Sherlock Holmes, grinning at his brother. “I’m afraid I’ve got no idea what you’re on about.”

* * *

When the flash of light cleared, a chorus of honks and squeals greeted them.

With a shout of alarm as a car whizzed past them, the driver sticking up his middle finger as he flashed past, Bucky grappled for a better hold on Tony and dove to the side. They rolled right underneath a second vehicle, which was thankfully some kind of large truck with the space for them to do so, and ended up sprawled out over the sidewalk.

“Well,” said Tony after a few minutes, once he’d stopped gasping for breath. “How about we go kick Richards’ ass, and then go watch a few dozen episodes of Star Trek.”

Bucky lay on his back and contemplated the sky overhead. He could get behind that, he thought. And perhaps somewhere in there, he could take Tony to task over touching something that was obviously magical before the actual _magic users_ on their team had taken a look at it.

“You’re on,” he agreed, and reached out to pat whatever part of Tony he could reach. “I’ll hold, you punch.”

“Deal!” said Tony, gleefully.

They turned their heads to look at each other, and simultaneously burst into relieved laughter. Reed Richards was _definitely_ an absolute menace.


End file.
